Hi guys

I need to know how one can manage a static HTML sites with alot of pages without the use of php/asp and cms.

I've thought of iFrames and server side includes. But other options?

Is it possible to create top horizontal drop down menus, left side menus and footer links via javascript/css and just provide a call function at the said location, so that any link updates I just need to update on the javascript/css file and not editing through tonnes of pages?

Can provide some guide/links for me to read up as well? Googling for so many things all over the place really leaves me

Thanks.

i kasi free cium.

This post has been edited by happy4ever: Dec 12 2010, 07:49 PM

using client side scripts seem feasible. You can also look at DHTML.

using json or xml data.javascript also have server side.

If you want 'static HTML' because you can't do server-side scripting then you can use script elements to generate the page boilerplate on the client, but you'll have your work cut out to satisfy all user-agents (what if a browser has js turned off, or incomplete support?) and clients may not be able to save a meaningful document for viewing offline.

If it's only 100 pages or so, could you re-generate the content offline and then replace the previous content on the server? It sounds a bit suck, but it's basically similar to what a cache would do if you updated your server-side scripts on a dynamic web. How often are you likely to change the boilerplate? The great thing about doing it that way is that you just write your web using your normal server-side techniques, and then just use wget or similar to 'download' a static version of the web, which you then upload to the static web server (if you can't do it in one shot by using wget on the static version server).

The question is...

Why?

if you use dynamic pages it would be easier, especially asp.net

i dont quite grasp what seanie is trying to say lol

its a client's security policy of not having any CMS running and prefer all to be in HTML.

i'm totally off with javascript, and i know it can be done with javascript controlling the menu which loads the iframes, its just that i basically suck in javascript, lol

so far not successful in getting as sample template with basic iframes for menu, footer, side navi. Heck, even my top menu seems to load another new page whenever i a href target on the iframe.

Who's going to maintain it in the future?

What seanie means is that you write the site in php or whatever you like so that you can develop rapidly. Then use a website mirroring tool to "export" your site into static HTML pages. Upload the static copy to the final destination. This may or may not meet your client's paranoia level.

seanie's suggested solution is probably most convenient as in updating the contents of your website, especially if it's updated frequently. Set up the cms on another port, and limit it to be accessible only by local ip's, everytime after you update the cms content, generate an updated copy of the cms as static html and you're good to go.

well, thats a new one!

Do a CMS, export it as static HTML, deliver.
But at this time, doing a CMS would mean double the work and duration. sigh.

i've got most of the iframes up, only problem is how to get the menu to highlight which iframe i loaded. any ideas?

And another problem is the darn IE6/7/8 compatibility....lol, but thats another headache.

if I were u, just use PHP zend framework to manage your static pages

it is easy to maintain

JavaScript + frames. Accessing DOM elements in frame/iframe is pretty straightforward and with the help of many JS framework out there, you can eliminate IE problems.

but the final delivery isn't in PHP, but html.

i've tried seanie's advice, and m looking at this: http://www.blogsdna.com/35/top-6-freeware-...ls-software.htm
which the purpose is to run a CMS and port these out into static sites using mirroring tools.

wget is too command prompt base, hard to use. I tried pagenest on SSI site, not too good. Lots of files/css/js not grabbed out.
Best is IE's .mht, but cant extract its files out.

Thats the hard part. My javascript isn't good, and to use iframes, it would be like having 4 to 5 iframes within a site. Top menu, left menu, right menu and footer, and the top menu need to be highlighted when the main site is loaded. The javascript to manage these just gives me a headache

I believe in seanie's post. To manage a static site needs to be in a CMS environment and port out to static format for the client. In house production ought to be independant of client deliverables. Problem here is the exporting part. Need to export the files in CMS to static aint easy.

just use PHP ZF

Perhaps you can elaborate why ZF is a suitable choice for the thread starter's problem.

but how do i export them into static files at the client's end, who do not run php?

You won't need to do anything else with wget, that's all you have to do to create a static copy of the original web on your hard disk. Before you take that command for a test drive, make sure your target site is a very small one that won't mind you scraping it - wget doesn't check /robots.txt, so won't honour Disallows or Crawl-delays.

---

Added on December 16, 2010, 9:46 amOh and make sure your site doesn't use sessions - there's no counterpart in a static site. And no URLs created in javascript - wget won't see them (but then, nothing will for some kinds of client-side generated URLs).

This post has been edited by seanie: Dec 16 2010, 09:46 AM

wget won't be able to mirror some stuff, like css or javascript-referenced content. In addition you won't be able to mirror pages that aren't (transitively) linked from your home page.

I would recommend a wget mirror, then overlay it with the existing static files so that you are sure that you didn't miss anything.

Something like that?

index.html


common.js


http://crayeo.com/test/test.html

haha that might just work, ampbuster, but looks complicated.

What i have found out that if SSI/PHP/ASP cannot be used, i can resort to simple javascript write.

Like placing a call function in the main site, and the .js file just document.write the html codes which acts like a seperate menu file.
No complicated javascript codes lol.

seanie, wget and most mirroring tools has their own downside. Alot of post-export processing need to be done to ensure the links/css/javascript work. Nowadays, most uses jquery and ajax effects, so it could be problematic.